Use of a Portable CT Scanner associated with 58% REDUCTION in request-to-scan times.
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Stroke Journal Vol 39, No 2. Feb 2008 Background: Our Emergency Department (ED), residing in a 280-bed community hospital, ordered more than one thousand head CT scans within the last year. Many of these patients had presented with signs of acute stroke and rapid neuroimaging is necessary before anti-coagulation or thrombolytic therapy can be initiated. The NIH and American Stroke Association recommend that CT imaging of acute stroke patients be performed with 25 minutes of the patient’s arrival. To facilitate rapid neuroimaging, many large tertiary care centers have installed fixed CT scanners in the ED, although it may be more cost-effective for community hospitals to purchase a portable head/neck CT. We performed a prospective study to determine whether the use of a portable CT scanner reduces request-to-scan times for ED patients. Methods: A portable head/neck CT scanner was purchased for the ED (CereTom® CT, NeuroLogica Corporation, Danvers, MA). The system is a mobile, high-resolution 8-slice CT scanner equipped to perform non-enhanced CT, CT angiography and CT perfusion studies. Request-to-Scan times were recorded on all patients requiring neuroimaging for any clinical indication, including acute stroke and trauma.
Results: The use of the portable CT scanner was associated with a 58% reduction in request-to-scan times for neuroimaging of ED patients (P < 0.001, n=530). The mean request-to-scan time was 39±5.1 minutes (n=127) for the month prior to the use of the portable scanner; request-to-scan times were 17±2.7 minutes (n=121, P < 0.001), 13±1.9 minutes (n=92, P < 0.001) and19±1.8 minutes (n=120, P < 0.001) and 13±1.3 minutes (n=69, P < 0.001) for the four consecutive months for which the portable scanner was used. Image quality was determined to be equivalent to conventional CT scanners. Conclusion: Portable head/scanner CT scanners may be a cost-effective approach to provide rapid neuroimaging of acute stroke patients in the community hospital setting. |